Gentleman Sinner

by Jodi Ellen Malpas

  “Sweetheart, I just know Theo wouldn’t want you to have your life on hold for him.”

  “Then he should come back to me so I can carry on with it. With him. Where is he, Judy?” My voice breaks, and my shoulders start jerking wildly. “Why isn’t he coming back to me?”

  “I don’t know,” she admits on a sigh. But I do, and it’s killing me. I knew he’d never forgive himself if he ever hurt me. It was the very reason I halted his intention to take me without the restraints that kept me safe that one time he so desperately needed to show me how much he loved me. That he could do it. Stopping him was a wise move. What I did after he’d bludgeoned Trystan wasn’t. And I’ll never forgive myself for putting him in that situation. For exposing him. For pushing him to murder.

  But what’s worrying me the most is what Theo will do to himself, whether he’ll punish himself. Reluctantly, I accept that this is his punishment. Depriving himself of me. And at the same time, he’s punishing me, too. If I could only see him or talk to him, I could tell him that. I’m a mess, broken.

  My heart is showing no signs of healing. The crack is getting wider each day he’s absent. I’m slowly dying on the inside, and I fear nothing will bring me back to life except him. But my cure, my hope, doesn’t want to be found.

  * * *

  I’m always so grateful when it’s busy on shift. The days when my feet don’t touch the ground because I’m flat-out hectic and I’m not given the chance to stop for a moment to breathe, let alone think. If I’m lucky, I’m so tired by the end that I can only focus on getting myself home and collapsing into bed.

  Today is one of those days. In fact, today has been the busiest shift in my entire career, and I’ve gone three hours over my official quitting time. That’s also a blessing these days. The unexpected arrival of patients, the bed manager asking for beds that we haven’t got, patients having unexpected relapses. I’ve welcomed the chaos.

  As I drag my coat on and scoop up my bag, I pass the nurses’ station and call my goodbye, hearing the sounds of stressed conversations. I mildly smile on the inside. They have the whole night to get through. I wrap my scarf around my neck as I walk, checking my phone for the call or message that I know won’t be there. It’s habit, a part of my everyday life now. So is the disappointment when I see nothing from Theo.

  I push my way through the endless double doors, working my way toward A&E and the closest exit. It’s Saturday night, so I’m not surprised when I find a mess of rushed doctors, stressed nurses, and many patients in the wards, most of them drunk. Holding my bag on my shoulder, I weave through the scatterings of people, peeking in the bays as I go. Drunk. Drunk. Vomiting. Drunk.

  I pass the reception area, where a huddle of people are waiting to be seen, checked in, or given information, and break through the doors into the cold evening air. Despite the no-smoking policy on the hospital grounds, there are dozens of people puffing away just outside the door, rather than walking the twenty meters that will technically take them off the property. I cough my way through the plumes of nicotine-infested air, my nose wrinkling, and cut across the walkway toward the main street.

  I pick up my pace, but notice some paramedics up ahead offloading a bed from their ambulance, looking urgent and rushed. I slow my stride to let them pass. The drunken man tailing me, however, doesn’t, and staggers right in front of the bed, causing the wheels to catch his ankles and knock him to his arse, as well as jar the bed to a halt. My hand covers my mouth, and the paramedics start shouting their annoyance at the drunken idiot for hindering them. The paramedic leading the bed is doing so with one hand, his other holding up a drip. His face flames red. “Move, you fool,” he yells, trying to get the bed around the squirming body of the drunk on the ground.

  I rush over to get the inebriated idiot out of their way. “Sir, you need to get up,” I say, hooking my arms under his armpits and straining to lift his deadweight. My nose is invaded with the putrid stench of stale alcohol and weeks’ worth of bad personal hygiene. “He won’t budge,” I huff, losing my hold. He falls back to the ground like a sack of potatoes, rolling and flailing around. I look to the paramedics, the unconscious patient on the bed catching my eye.

  Time stops.

  My heart stops.

  The world stops spinning.

  I stagger back and my body slams into the wall behind me, my lungs exploding from the impact. “Theo,” I whisper, my shocked eyes trying to fathom the picture of the broken man before me. Blood. There’s blood everywhere. “Oh my God,” I breathe, my body caught between taking me to him and keeping far, far back, frightened to get closer and see the full extent of the unsightliness—his skin sallow and gray, his cheeks gaunt, and his stubble now a beard. I hardly recognize him.

  Instinct takes over, and I run to the bed.

  “Miss, please.” The paramedic intervenes, pulling me away. “Do you know him? Can you tell us his name?”

  “He’s my boyfriend,” I choke, scanning his face for any sign of life. There’s none. He’s motionless. Looks dead. “His name is Theo. Theo Kane.” I shrug off the paramedic and shoot forward, looking Theo up and down, seeing his chest naked beneath the thin blankets. More blood. “What’s happened to him?” My heart breaks in two, the sight of my big, strong man so utterly broken putting too much strain on the crack that’s caused me agony since he left.

  The two paramedics negotiate the bed around the drunken man, leaving him on the ground. “He was found by the docks. Unconscious, unresponsive, low pulse rate. He’s not in a good way, darling.”

  They burst through the doors of the emergency care unit, and a flood of nurses hurry toward us, obviously awaiting Theo’s arrival. The paramedic sends one out to the drunken man, and I barely stop myself from shouting my outrage. Theo needs every nurse he can get. They begin work on him immediately as the paramedics carry on wheeling him down the corridor, reeling off everything from his name to his blood pressure, from where they found him to his injuries.

  I’m in a daze of nothingness, running alongside the bed, listening and watching the madness unfold. I hear the word critical. I hear them tell the nurses that he has a suspected punctured lung resulting from broken ribs. But what’s holding most of my attention is the sudden sight of Theo’s body jerking. It appears to be in spasm, constantly twitching on the bed. Yet when I look to his face, nothing.

  All my nursing instincts go out the window. I’m not calm, I’m not collected, and I’m not thinking straight. If these medical professionals weren’t here, I wouldn’t know what to do. My heart is beating so fast it’s a vibration in my chest, my ears pounding with the pressure of blood pumping around my body.

  Theo’s wheeled into a cubicle and I’m stopped at the threshold, the nurse pushing me back a little to leave room for the many people working on him. It takes everything in me to obey. To give them space and not lunge forward and seize Theo in my arms. Watching as a nurse tries to insert a cannula into his arm pains me. His twitching body keeps knocking her off target, and she repeatedly stabs at his flesh, never hitting the vein she needs.

  Pads are slapped onto his torso and wires clipped into place, leading to a heart monitor. The second it comes to life, my own heart nearly slows to a stop. His heart rate is completely irregular. He’s unconscious, but his body continues to jerk. No matter how hard I search my medical brain for a reason for these symptoms, I’m coming up blank. Is he having a seizure? Then all hands are off him, just for a split second, but in that split second his body stills. And I realize why when hands return to working on him and his erratic twitching begins again.

  He doesn’t like them touching him. The comprehension gives me a tiny glimmer of hope. His body is trying to react, but he hasn’t the strength. He’s aware. He knows what’s happening but can’t stop it. And neither can I, because if I get these people off him, he’ll die. His head is pulled back and a breathing tube fed down his throat. I wince at another sign of preparation. They think he could go into arrest at any moment.r />
  I silently beg them to work faster, to give his heart the shock it needs to reset and find an organized beat before it stops completely. One of the nurses pulls the pads out, ready to give that shock.

  But then it happens. He flatlines, and the pads get tossed aside by the nurse with a small curse. It’s too late for pads now. The alarms go mad, the shrill, warning ring of the heart monitor piercing my ears so much I’m forced to cover them with my palms until the monitor is quickly turned off. I can’t watch. But I can’t leave, either. I feel like I’m in limbo, depending on these people to save him. I look at the screen of the machinery and see the flat line. I can feel my heart slowly stopping, too. “No,” I mumble, my eyes bursting with devastated tears. “No, Theo, no.” I back up, feeling everything inside me beginning to give up completely.

  Everyone starts scurrying around the bed, the urgency of the nurses cranking up to the highest level. A cardiac team appears, pushing me aside, and Theo’s quickly hooked up to various monitors. I’m frozen, just watching him slip away from me. He’s not jerking anymore. Hands are all over him and he’s not moving. A broken sob bursts past my lips, my hand coming up to cover my mouth as I back away. The calm talking of the nurses becomes distant, the movements slow. A male nurse is pumping frantically at Theo’s chest while another rushes to get a drip into Theo’s arm. Looking at the heart monitor again sends tremors down my spine. Still no beat. CPR isn’t working “Oh my God,” I whisper, my world crumbling beneath my feet.

  “I need someone to take over,” the nurse pumping at Theo’s chest says, so calmly, sweat dripping from his forehead.

  Another nurse jumps in and relieves him, and Theo’s body starts jerking again, but now it’s because of the constant compressions being delivered.

  I look at the monitor again. Nothing.

  The nurses throw constant worried looks at each other, the atmosphere becoming more and more tense. Some drugs are pumped into him as they continue to work frantically but calmly, attempting to establish why his heart has stopped. I watch as the pharmacist prepares the next combination of drugs, anything to try to encourage the electrical activity of his heart. It’s a process of elimination, a race to find out why his heart has stopped before it’s too late.

  “Switch,” the nurse performing CPR calls, moving aside to let her colleague take over again. She looks up at the clock. She breathes in. She flicks a despairing expression to the nurse who’s just accepted the next round of drugs from the pharmacist. He administers them and stands back, his face grave.

  They’re going to give up soon. I can sense the defeat. I peek at the monitor. And again there’s no change in the flat line. “Come on, big man,” the nurse grates, sweating as he relentlessly pushes into Theo’s chest.

  “One more?” the other nurse asks her colleague as she looks at him. I hold my breath.

  “One more,” he agrees, removing his hands and letting her take over again.

  Everyone looks at the screen, waiting for that line to start jumping.

  But it doesn’t. It remains a continuous green glow, like still water. The straightest, most perfect line you could imagine. The nurses are glancing at each other again, all of them thinking the same thing, but no one wanting to be the one to call a halt on their work. And then one of them nods his head and the other pulls her hands away from Theo’s chest. That’s it. They’ve given up. I shake my head as agony tears through my body like acid, burning away any hope that may have remained. “Please,” I beg.

  “I’m sorry, miss.” A hand rests on my shoulder, and I look blankly up to the paramedic who brought Theo in. “We did all we could.”

  My head turns back to the bed as they all move away. My big man is now free from feeling hands, his body still, his face peaceful. I breathe in an unsteady breath, my lips trembling, my eyes pooling, as I tread carefully toward him, as quiet as can be, like I’m scared I might wake him. My teeth are chattering. My eyes pouring with tears. And my heart just died along with him.

  My grief pours from my eyes in fast, fat drops, dripping all over his face as I lean over him, getting as close as I can, losing it completely. I cry like I’ve never cried before, in loud, body-jerking sobs. “Where were you?” I weep, my breath hitching over my words. “Where were you all this time, Theo? Why didn’t you come back to me?” My forehead meets his shoulder, the pain, the devastation, hitting my heart like a bullet, causing the crack to branch off like breaking glass, ensuring it’s completely broken.

  Destroyed.

  Dead.

  I can feel grief gripping me, holding me prisoner in its clutches, and I know it will never let me go. He’s gone. I’ve lost him. I’m fast slipping into darkness, my body physically rolling in pain.

  Rolling.

  My body is rolling. It undulated, and it wasn’t my relentless sobbing that made it do so. I still, swallowing down my next sob, waiting for it to happen again. But it doesn’t. I pull away from Theo’s lifeless form, scrubbing at my eyes and looking across at the heart monitor. The line is still flat, and a doctor has started to disconnect the wires. “Wait,” I murmur. I see him look over the bed to me out of the corner of my eye, but I keep my eyes trained on that screen, waiting, hoping, praying.

  “Miss?”

  “Just wait,” I say, the seconds ticking by slowly. Nothing happens. No signs of life. I grit my teeth, willing movement of the line, even just a little flicker. “Come on,” I breathe, grabbing Theo’s hand. He jerks, and I jump back in fright. “Try again,” I shout, urgency coursing through my veins. “You have to try again.”

  “Miss, he’s gone,” the nurse says gently, his hands paused on the wires.

  “He moved.”

  “That’s not unusual.”

  “He moved,” I yell, squeezing Theo’s hand, mentally encouraging another one.

  “Miss, we know about spinal reflexes. It happens often after a passing.”

  “It wasn’t a spinal reflex,” I yell frantically, turning to one of the nurses who was giving Theo chest compressions. “He moved because I touched him. All of his movements when you brought him in were because you were all touching him. He doesn’t like being touched.” I release Theo’s hand and rush over to the nurse, grabbing the front of his uniform. I’m aware this could be considered assaulting a staff member, but I don’t care if they throw me in jail for ten years. He moved. “Please, try again,” I demand, my deranged behavior sending the room quiet. “Please, I beg you. He’s still got life in him.”

  The nurse flicks his eyes over to his colleague, then to Theo on the bed as I wait what seems like a lifetime for him to give in to my demand. Yes or no, Theo will be getting more CPR. I’ll do it myself if I have to. Seconds tick by, and I give up waiting for him to decide whether he’s going to try. I run across to do it myself, my hands looking so small against Theo’s chest as I start pumping. I’m out of breath after a few seconds, my strength pitiful as I sob through my weak attempts.

  “Move,” the nurse says, pushing his way past me. “We need some weight behind the compressions.”

  So much air leaves my lungs, they hurt. He glances at the monitor as he puts his hands into position, and I can see the doubt in his eyes. But he starts pumping anyway, his jaw tight. He’s exhausted; there’s a sheen of sweat coating his face. He doesn’t ask for someone to take over. He carries on, small grunts escaping with each compression. “Come on,” he whispers. The gray skin of Theo’s face and the blackness of his sockets seem to darken before my eyes as I wait, a lump that feels like a tennis ball settling in my throat. All three of us stare at the flat line, seeing no change, and I start to build my plea for another round of compressions. For more drugs. Anything. My joined hands come up to my face, praying.

  And then it happens. What I’ve prayed for actually happens.

  The line jumps.

  My hands fall away from my face, my eyes burning, refusing to blink in case I miss it.

  Another jump. “Oh my God,” I breathe, tripping over my fee
t to get to the bed. My dark world gets an injection of life. Another jump. I grab Theo’s hand, stroking at his sallow cheeks. “Theo.”

  “Fucking hell,” the nurse breathes, and I look to him, my eyes welling. He looks like a ghost. “I can’t believe it.” He staggers back, scrubbing his hands down his face.

  “I told you,” I say, trying not to get too far ahead of myself. I just knew it. I knew he was strong. There’s a burst of activity behind me, and I look back to see most of the staff have returned, all of them taking in the scene before looking at the heart monitor. I follow their stares and see a regular, strengthening beat. I cough over a sob, sniveling as I place my palm over his heart and his tattoo, and feel the beats, too.

  Urgency springs into the nurses and they all crowd around, pulling machinery from here and there, and trollies loaded with medical equipment. When one grabs Theo’s arm, he jerks violently, and she curses, dropping the needle she’s trying to get into the back of his hand. She’ll never get that line in. “He doesn’t like being touched,” I say, watching her throw the needle in a medical waste bin and grab another from a new, sterilized packet. She looks at my hand on Theo’s chest. “Except by me,” I add, my elation lifting more. He’s unconscious, yet he still knows it’s me. His movements when I touched him before weren’t just because I was touching him. He was speaking to me when he couldn’t talk. “I’m a nurse,” I explain, removing one hand from Theo and indicating down my front to my uniform. “I work here. I can do that.”

  She peeks up at me before going back to Theo’s hand and trying again. “Thanks, but I’ve got it.” He jerks again, and she curses, tossing yet another wasted needle into the yellow bin after she’s picked it up from the floor.